You don’t have to be Jewish to love Passover

But if you are trying to get high fructose corn syrup (or corn or grain products) out of your family’s diet, foods that have been produced specifically for the Passover season (March 29th through sundown, April 5th this year) are your friends. I went to my local ‘large regional supermarket chain’ and found that the Passover display was already up: matza, coconut macaroons, breakfast cereals, baking mixes, potato flour, you name it. These are products that although you will want to read the ingredient labels just to read them, it is not as if you will have to read them to catch the manufacturer in putting corn products into them. Corn and other grain products are forbidden for Passover, so products are manufactured specifically with that in mind and the manufacturers’ premises are rigorously cleaned and inspected by religious authorities before the manufacturing process takes place to make sure that there is no ‘chametz’ (grain products) left behind to contaminate the manufacturing processing equipment.

When I saw that ketchup, I knew that it was time to stock up. Passover is not for another month, but I can tell you that the more unique items (the baking mixes, the salad dressings, the breakfast cereals and the ketchup) tend to disappear quickly. So, if you don’t see any of those items on the display, find the department manager and ask if the store will be getting any more shipments in before Passover. You might even ask the manager whether or not you can order case lots of items for personal purchase.

Not that I am advocating running around to all the stores in your area and buying up all the Passover items, but stores will order more if they think they can sell more. If you don’t see a well stocked Passover display in your area, you might wish to contact your local Jewish community and ask whether they are doing co-op buying for Passover – but do it quickly. Passover is one of those holidays in the religious calendar that is very important and Jewish families will have been planning for this for several weeks at this point.

If nothing else, tuck this fact in the back of your head: There is one time of the year when, if your supermarket has a well-stocked display, you will be able to find products that do not contain grains, corn, or corn sweeteners. And that is the month before Passover.

That’s a good idea — I usually go organic on the ketchup just to get sugar instead of HFCS (our grocer’s house brand organics includes just about everything these days). But I’m going to remember to check the passover section this week!